Finding the Right Ecommerce Platform for Your Fashion Store

Do you buy cloth on the spot? No one does. We all check out its colour, design, fashion, and the most important – defects before making a purchase, then do you think people will buy from your online cloth store if it has defects?

By defected we mean running your online store on a cheap platform, lacking necessary features and having no quality photos or designs. You may wonder who runs an online store like that but guess what? Many startups do make this mistake in order to save a few bucks.

Starting an online clothing store may be your dream and just because it is your startup; doesn’t mean you find the cheapest way to do it as it will, in turn, cost you a lot. The common mistake that many startups make is – compromises. “It’s a startup and we are low on budget so, anything will do,” mindset is what made many entrepreneurs fail before they even begin. Never ever go for cheap ways to run an online store especially when the competition is cut-throat.

Remember, unlike offline shops, online stores cannot give a live experience of clothes while shopping and hence how you create your web store becomes very important as that experience will decide the fate of your business. Which is why the selection of platform for your online clothing store is the most crucial decision you must make if you wish to deliver an experience that your customers will genuinely love.

For an online clothing store to be successful, its platform must be highly customizable with advanced shipping and CRM integrations, have all necessary features and should come with merchandising capabilities. Additionally, it must offer a secure payment gateway and a straightforward returns and exchanges policy as well as an efficient back-end system for your convenience. Since the market is flooded with various platforms like Magento, Shopify, WooCommerce, Opencart, BigCommerce, Volusion, Stitch, 3dcart, WIX, and PrestaShop, it is quite normal to get confused and pick one that meets your requirements and budget. So, here’s a guide to picking the right eCommerce platform for your clothing store.

1.  Magento

When it comes to having a flexible and highly customizable platform, Magento is the name that appears the most and is the best. Many premium brands like Alternative Apparel, Paul Smith, and End Clothing are running on it as Magento serves everything that an online store requires to be successful.

It can handle significant traffic with ease and comes in various versions both; free and paid to suit different businesses like:

Magento Community Edition – a free, open-source platform, ideal for SMEs.

Magento Enterprise Edition – a paid version with advanced capabilities such as personal discounts, customer segmentation, and others, ideal for fashion giants. Some of the in-built features that Magento eCommerce platform offers you are:

• eCommerce SEO
• Mobile commerce
• Superb customer experience
• Multi-store management
• Persistent shopping cart
• Sleek and interactive template designs

 Also Read:Benefits of Building a Marketplace Using Magento

2. PrestaShop

A freemium, opensource eCommerce platform, currently used by 300,000 shops worldwide and is available in 60 different languages can work wonders for your online fashion store. It comes with a wide range of free and paid Prestashop Addons, extensions that you can integrate to improve the functionality of your PrestaShop store. Hire a prestashop mobile app builder if you want to unleash the complete power of it. PrestaShop gives you:

• More than three hundred built-in features
• Numerous integrations
• Wide collection of themes & modules
• Excellent support materials and documentation
• Strong user community

3. WooCommerce

An open-source e-commerce plugin of one of the famous content management system – WordPress, WooCommerce is not just successfully used by such brands as Poppy Barley, Thief and Bandit and Hackwith Design House etc., but over 3.8 million websites around the world are currently running on WooCommerce. By adding additional plugins and extensions you can make your PrestaShop even more capable for your online fashion store. With PrestaShop you get:

• A user-friendly back-end system
• The worldwide community of developers for the problem-solving
• Zero fees per sale
• Complete control over setting up, hosting, security, maintenance etc.

4. Shopify

One of the best eCommerce platforms for beginners, Shopify is simple to navigate and fast. Bead and Real, Baggu, Skinny Dip, Kylie Cosmetics, and Bootea are some of the brands that are doing great on Shopify. It comes in several additions to serve businesses of all sizes.

To customize Shopify, you don’t need any design skills. It loads faster and hence can easily help you gain a position in Google ranking. Some of the highlights of Shopify are:

• A comprehensive dashboard
• MailChimp integration
• Content, guides and 24/7 phone support
• 100+ free, fully responsive store themes
• Excellent shipping options
• Commendable SEO features

5. BigCommerce

Giving a tough competition to Shopify, BigCommerce is blooming and becoming the next favourite of entrepreneurs as it promises to serve as an excellent eCommerce platform. It has various pricing plans to choose from and comes with features like great analytics, hosting, amazing security, an in-person point of sale, social media selling capabilities, a considerable number of apps, and excellent design options. BigCommerce woos you with:

• A library of 80 free and paid themes
• Built-in shipping quotes, gift certificates, and product reviews and other components
• 24/7 Email or Chat support.
• Option to connect your shop with mega-marketplaces
• User-friendly admin panel
• 15-day free trial

Things to keep in mind while selecting a platform for your clothing brand

• Select your platform as per your target audience as the sole purpose of your store is to please them.
• Pay attention to your theme selection as it is the theme that does the job of attracting customers.
• Ensure the platform has customization options as you may have to customize shopping cart, checkout page, product detail page, and more according to your products.
• Lastly, check upon its integration capabilities. The platform must be able to integrate seamlessly with systems such as ERP, CRM, or others streamlines business processes and boosts productivity.

So, which is the Right eCommerce Platform for a Clothing Store? 

A definite answer cannot be given to this question as all the platforms are best in their own way and must be selected according to your business size, strategy and the number of products. All of the above is suitable for fashion eCommerce and hence focus on picking up the right magento development company who can build your online store in a way that it attracts and sells.

Rakesh Jain

Rakesh Jain is the co-founder and CEO of MobiCommerce. When he is not busy taking the company to newer heights, he authors detailed blog posts for leading publications, teaching eCommerce store owners different ways to manage, grow and scale their business. As a seasoned entrepreneur, he is passionate about proactively finding the “next big thing.”